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Saturday, December 9, 2017

Albums of 2017

2017 has been a fairly quiet
year for everythingsgonegreen. That’s not the result of some great master plan,
or of any conscious decision to wind things down, it’s just the way life’s
been. And while I’ve blogged a lot less than in previous years - managing around
a post per week - I’ve still been listening to a lot of music, reading about
music, and attending gigs. I’ve just been less inclined to write about that
stuff. It’s not like I haven’t had the time to blog, and I even had a spell mid-year
when I was more or less living alone for a month, so there’s no real excuse.
The flip-side to that has been a mentally demanding year for the day job, and
an early summer overseas break, which robbed me of some momentum just as I was
starting to ramp things up a little.

All of that said, 2017 has been a
bumper year for new music, and albums in particular, despite continual assertions
from naysayers that the album format itself is a dying art-form. The following
list refers to my “most played” albums of the year, which, by extension might
be interpreted as “the best” albums of the year, but I’ve doubtlessly missed
many others that perhaps should have made the cut. The only prerequisite for
the list is that I own a copy (in any format other than Spotify, which remains
a mystery to me):

10. Peter Perrett – How The West
Was Won

Without question, How The West
Was Won is the blog’s comeback album of the year. It couldn’t really be any
other way. I suspect even Perrett himself could scarcely have anticipated the
hugely positive response his solo debut has attracted. It’s a heartfelt,
intimate body of work, which marks Perrett’s card as one of rock’s ultimate
survivors. My review can be found here.

9. Aldous Harding – Party

Speaking of barely anticipated
success stories, Aldous Harding will forever recall 2017 as the year she went
global. The year she went stratospheric, even. And rightly so. Party is just
nine songs in length but they’re all immaculately crafted dark hypnotic gems. Challenging,
unsettling, and ultimately very rewarding. The real test for Aldous Harding
will be to better it next time out. My review is here.

8. Bonobo – Migration

Every year, there’s always one
album that reveals itself a lot more slowly than the rest, and this year,
Bonobo’s Migration wins the highly coveted EGG gong for “creeper” of the year.
As uncomplimentary as that label may seem, Migration is an album that just
keeps on giving, with each and every listen revealing something new and
previously unheard – be it a small or otherwise undecipherable bleep, a nagging
loop, a flurry of keys, or perhaps something more obvious like an additional
layer of bass. Because this album has a lot of bass. Whatever the case, it’s
not an album to be absorbed entirely over the course of one listen. It requires
patience and a keen ear, and since it was released as long ago as January, I’ve
given this one a fair amount of ear time during 2017. Despite not actually
getting around to giving it a full review on the blog. Just a quick summary
then: aside from compilations, collaborations, and remix efforts, Migration is
album number six for LA-based Englishman Simon Green as Bonobo, all of which
are released on Ninja Tune, and it brings together a multitude of influences
and instrumentation, from strong North African flavours, to jazzy hip hop vibes,
to glitchy electronica, and all manner of bass-driven world music textures.
Beautifully produced, and just over an hour in length, the two best tracks on
the album involve elements of collaboration – ‘Break Apart’, featuring Rhye,
and ‘No Reason’, featuring the vocals of Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker). The way
things are going, the way this one is continually rising in my estimation, by
this time next year, Migration could well be this year’s number one. Or
something like that.

7. Coldcut & On-U Sound –
Outside The Echo Chamber

Regular blog readers and friends
(which, let’s face it, is pretty much the same person) will have picked this
one. They’ll know of my obsession with all things On-U Sound. The label could
release an album of (producer) Adrian Sherwood passing wind and I’d probably
still include it on my year-end list. Providing he applied some echo and other
marvellous FX, of course. This one is different though, because it’s not
actually an On-U label release, and it includes stalwart Ninja Tune duo
Coldcut, plus a host of other rather terrific collaborators. My review is here.

6. Lord Echo – Harmonies

I’m not sure why this album
doesn’t feature more prominently on other local year-end lists. I can’t help
but wonder whether it would have gained more traction had it been made by a
more high profile R’nB or funk producer … an overseas-based artist, say? Which is
madness. My review can be found here.

5. Slowdive – Slowdive

This is another album that
didn’t get a full review on the blog. And another one that arrived as far back
as January. It’s also the runner-up in the comeback of the year poll (I polled
myself, okay?). It could all have been so different. It could all have gone so
horribly wrong. A quarter of a century ago, Slowdive were at the very heart of
this thing, or genre, we call “shoegaze”. A band for its time, very much of its
time. Yet, after years of inactivity the band returned in 2017 with this
self-titled pearler of an album. And how. In fact, if you compiled a playlist
of the ten most essential Slowdive tunes since the band first started releasing
music back in 1990, then at least four of them could be lifted from the eight
tracks found on this, the fourth album of four, and the Reading band’s first
for 22 years. Main protagonists, vocalists Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell,
are key to its success, their chemistry being front and centre on the tracks with
lyrics or those that include vocals. Not that those vocals are particularly
orthodox, and if I have a slight criticism, it’s that too often their voices
are a little muddy or buried too deeply within the mix. There’s obligatory
walls of driving guitar, multiple layers of purposeful noise, and during
lighter moments, ethereal keys and ambient interludes to die for. Production
comes courtesy of Halstead himself. Ultimately it’s a wonderful concoction of
dreamy pop, and an album full of lovely surprises. Check out: ‘Star Roving’,
‘Sugar for the Pill’, and ‘Falling Ashes’.

4. Cigarettes After Sex –
Cigarettes After Sex

In my original review (go here),
I beat myself up just a little for loving the music of Cigarettes After Sex.
What, with the album being so unrepentantly emo and pubescent ‘n all. I figure
I really should know better, or at least, I really should be over all of that
angst and nonsense by now, at my advanced age. Etc. Well, it turns out I’m not,
and just between us … (*whispers, looks around anxiously*) … I’m really looking
forward to the band’s Auckland gig next month.

3. Fazerdaze – Morningside

With all of the fuss being made
over Lorde, Aldous Harding, and Nadia Reid during 2017, Amelia Murray (aka
Fazerdaze) may feel a touch hard-done-by in the local-girl-done-good stakes.
But she shouldn’t, she has talent to burn, and Morningside is its own reward. It’s
the best thing to emerge from these shores all year. My review can be found here.

2. Robert Plant – Carry Fire

Where to start with the
phenomenon that is Robert Plant? In truth, I probably don’t need to add anything,
his career speaks for itself. More specifically, the five albums he’s released
over the past dozen years or so - starting with Mighty Rearranger in 2005 -
have made a mockery of any ill-conceived (yet common) notion that he’s just
another crusty old rocker going through the motions. Carry Fire is the eleventh
Robert Plant “solo” album, a second successive outing with the Sensational
Space Shifters, and what once worked for him way back at the dawn of time, still
works for him today. More or less. Only now, there’s quite a lot more variation
on that much loved formula. Plant is essentially the consummate roots artist,
only for him, roots means everything from country, folk, and blues, to orthodox
pop, Celtic rock, and African rhythms. Carry Fire presents a veritable potpourri
of all of the above. His customary Rock God howl is no longer as prominent as
it once was, but with that change comes a seasoned voice full of subtlety and
nuance. A voice that remains a weapon, an instrument in itself, even, but one
that’s evolved into a weapon of a very different nature. These days it’s seduction
by one thousand soft kisses, as opposed to the full on “wham bam” approach of
his rather enviable youth. There’s some great stuff on Carry Fire; the past-referencing
opener ‘The May Queen’. The intoxicating duet with Chrissie Hynde, ‘Bluebirds over
the Mountain’. The closer, ‘Heaven Sent’. And the title track itself. See? …
all of that, without once mentioning Led Zeppelin. Oh, darn.

1. The National – Sleep Well
Beast

A lot of people love to hate
this band, but you’ll know I’m a big fan of The National. And if an ordinary
effort like 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me could make that year’s year-end ten for
the blog, then you’ll sure as hell know that this year’s monstrous Sleep Well
Beast is going to cane it. My typically fawning review can be found here.

Five honourable mentions and
other everythingsgonegreen year-end gongs (“the EGGs”):

The Horrors – V … I used to
think the Horrors was a try-hard goth-wannabe novelty cartoon band. A pale
imitation of that, even. Without ever really listening to the music. This
year’s release helped me see the error of my ways and the folly of my
ill-informed prejudice. V was a good mix of psychedelia, nostalgia, and
synthpop: see the Numan-esque album opener, ‘Hologram’ (“are we Hologram, are
we vision?”), for evidence of the latter.

The War on Drugs – A Deeper
Understanding … following on from the huge promise of Lost in the Dream (2014),
this one felt a tad disappointing at first. Which only goes to show how high
the bar had been raised, and it’s probably unfair, because A Deeper Understanding
is a thoroughly decent album in its own right.

Ryan Adams – The Prisoner … a
sixteenth studio album from the prolific American singer/songwriter. This one
was all about not ever really being able to escape from that pesky broken
relationship. Hence the title, I suppose. By the way, is there ever any other
type of relationship? It’s all about degrees of “broken”, I guess.

Alt-J – Relaxer … or
technically, alt-J, but that makes me cringe a little. My teenage kids have
mentioned this band in passing, separately, more than once. Which must mean
they’re hugely popular. I had no idea just how weird and whacky Relaxer would
turn out to be when I picked it up on the strength of early single, ‘3WW’,
which features Wolf Alice chanteuse Ellie Rowsell. This week's Wellington show
is a sell out.

The Trainspotting 2 soundtrack wins
the EGG for compilation album of the year. Thanks mainly to the fact that I
enjoyed the movie so much. And because I didn’t really hold onto many of the
other compilation albums I picked up during the year. Reviewed here.

Five more … close but no cigar: Depeche
Mode – Spirit, LCD Soundsystem – American Dream, Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun, Sharon
Jones & The Dap-Kings – Soul of a Woman, Zola Jesus – Okovi. Each of these albums had an extended run of pod time during the year.

Speaking of movies, the local
festival “hit”, Swagger of Thieves, Julian Boshier’s fly-on-the-wall documentary
about the trials and tribulations of Wellington rockers Head Like A Hole just
shades Lion as EGG’s film of the year. Yes, there’s a huge amount of local bias
and personal connection in that selection. Reviewed here.

The short album or EP of the
year bauble goes to Wellington masters of the dark arts, Dreams Are Like Water,
with A Sea-Spell, a striking debut, featuring a handful of tunes packed full of
texture and depth. My love for this was instant. My review is here.

2017 was a big year for
re-releases, deluxe versions, and anniversary reissues, with the EGG going to
Radiohead’s 20th birthday celebration of OK Computer, OKNOTOK, which
included not only the band’s original masterpiece, but the added value of an
entire new album of unreleased, previously discarded material from the same
period. The “throwaway” material was superb, and proof, if it was needed, that
Radiohead remain one of rock’s most important bands of the past 25 years. I had
a real soft spot for Bob Marley’s ridiculously good Exodus reissue (40th
anniversary), and thought R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People (25th
anniversary deluxe) had a nice mix of live material and early demos to
supplement the original. So good, you can trace the album’s evolution from
start to finish when listening to those demos.

My gig of the year was Lord
Echo's funk-fest at Wellington’s San Fran in early November, on the occasion of
his Harmonies album release tour. With so many co-conspirators involved in the
making of the album, I was curious as to how it might translate in a live
environment, but he pulled it off with some aplomb. Ensuring that vocalists
Lisa Tomlins and Mara TK were a big part of the show was key, obviously, but
props to the entire band, which was sensational all night. As was support act
Julien Dyne, who offered a virtuoso live drumming performance. That Saturday
night gig just shaded the two Wellington Fazerdaze gigs I caught during 2017,
the first at Caroline (reviewed here), right at the start of the year, and then
much later on, in September, at Meow, which turned out to be even better. At
each gig, Amelia Murray fronted an entirely different band. No mean feat in
itself.

Which just about covers it. Obligatory
year-end wrap completed. All in less than 2,500 words (yawn). Well done for
making it this far. I nearly didn’t. If you don’t catch me here again before
the silly season, dear reader, have a great festive period.